Open Sound System

See also Audio | ALSA | Linux | *NIX

Home Page: http://www.opensound.com

Aka: Open Sound System

The default sound architecture by 4 Front Technologies (http://www.4front-tech.com) in stable Linux kernel version 2.2 and 2.4. It has been deprecated in Linux kernel 2.5 (devel) and 2.6 (stable) since it has been replaced and superseeded by ALSA. The Linux kernel comes with an older, Free (GPL) version of OSS. One has to pay for the newer, proprietary version or use a 30-day demo which has some side effects.

OSS binaries are available for many Free/proprietary Unices including platforms and versions of

• Linux
• FreeBSD
• NetBSD
• OpenBSD
• BSD/OS
• Solaris
• AIX
• HP-UX
• Tru64
• OpenServer
• UnixWare

Details are available on the OSS homepage (http://www.opensound.com).

Some sound cards are not supported by ALSA while others are, either by the Free or the non-Free version. The ALSA drivers are also occasionally harder to get properly working.

Related

• Kerneltrap: Linux: The Future Of The Open Sound System (http://kerneltrap.org/node/view/2718).
• XMMS – Also by 4 Front Technologies. GPL.
• List of supported soundcards (http://www.opensound.com/osshw.html).
• List of supported software (http://www.opensound.com/ossapps.html).

TakeDown.NET -> “Open-Sound-System”